Texas hurricane could impact grain movement

The storm that’s brought widespread flooding to Texas and Louisiana will also have an impact on grain exports from the Gulf Coast.

Mike Steenhoek, with the Soy Transportation Coalition, says the extent to which it will be a problem for farmers remains unclear.

“This is something that is going to really, at a minimum, impose some delays. At maximum, it could wreak some havoc on the entire grain and soybean logistics system,” Steenhoek says.

The Texas Gulf is not that consequential for soybean and corn exports, but it does account for 24-percent of wheat exports. Steenhoek says the greater concern, from the perspective of a farmer in Iowa, is how the storm will impact the lower Mississippi River. He says that area accounts for about 60 percent of U.S. soybean and corn exports.

“It really has the potential of washing out bridges, washing out railroad bridges,” Steenhoek says, “and if you have sustained winds, it can impose harm on the actual infrastructure itself – -the grain export terminals.”

Steenhoek says grain handlers who export from the Mississippi Gulf region are taking the storm very seriously.